Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot

Let’s work backwards here. Billy Wilder’s comedy about two musicians who witness a mob hit and go into hiding by dressing as women and joining an all-girl band has one of the best closing lines in cinema. Jack Lemmon tears off the fetching wig he’s been wearing for much of the movie and declares, “I’m a man!” Joe E. Brown, the millionaire who has fallen in love with him/her, calmly responds, “Nobody’s perfect.” Perhaps, but that line is perfect. And so are Lemmon and Curtis. The former revels in the role, his character joyously takes to playing a woman. The latter is less proficient, but his stumbling, barely veiled masculinity works perfectly alongside Lemmon’s giddy girlishness.